A blog dedicated to the exploration of issues in international relations and politics, sometimes following the scientific method, and sometimes not. Maintained by Konstantinos Travlos, PhD and other contributors.

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Sunday, October 25, 2015

Thinking about Politics Part II:The Fundamental Political Divides

In the previous post I reviewed my reaction to the book The Reactionary Mind, and discussed how despite its problems it planted fertile seeds in my mid. Here I explore them. This is long people.So what Robin has led me to do is develop my own schema of politics
if you will. Let us start by the only social science pronouncement I will make
here: The majority of human beings are risk-averse. Risk averseness is mostly
an evolutionary condition, and while social institutions can inhibit or foster
it reality has a status-quo bias. In another name most of us have a
conservative (not “Conservative”) temperament.

When writers in National Review
make fun of progressives or Leftists for failing to consider that, they also
forget that people like Margaret Thatcher, or the elites that began the
enclosure movement that destroyed the medieval peasantry and created the modern
proletariat, also had to deal with this. Most people like stability and dislike
change. Even more are unwilling to risk their life to enact change. Change has
always been the purview of the sizeable minority that is risk acceptant. But
while the risks acceptant are agents of change, without the stability inherent
in the preferences of most people, social life would be impossible. You can ignore the timid and the seekers of
stability (Kevin Williamson, arch-libertarian on National Review, just recently
penned a column making this case to supporters of the free market. One can
still hope for understanding in this world).

This means that one of the first fundamental divides of life
is between those who want change and those who do not. And because politics is
as a prominent political theorists said, “who gets what when and how” among
scarce resources, change always refers to the distribution of those resources.
And in most of history this has meant a formal social hierarchy.

This then is the first issue of politics: The Role of
Hierarchy.

Generally speaking the first fundamental divide is between
those who believe that institutionalized hierarchies of nature or history are
unavoidable, and those who believe that hierarchies of nature or history are
avoidable and that they should not be institutionalized. What do we mean by hierarchies of nature? The
fact that some persons due to natural aptitudes might excel in some tasks
compared to other individuals. What do we mean by hierarchies of history? The
social capital accumulated in generations that assure individuals a good share
of the scarce resources irrespective of natural aptitude. What do we mean by institutionalization?
The existence of social and political regimes that maintain and reproduce these
hierarchies.

Robin makes the case that “Conservatives” believe in the
inevitability of hierarchy and its institutionalization. People get angry is someone points out that
the Fascist and Nationalist-Socialist movements were “Conservative” in their
nature, and I tended to also disagree with this, but Robin’s thesis underpins
how this can make sense. The Nazis and Fascists attacked many traditional
hierarchies, most based on history, but their goals were still a hierarchy, one
according to their view based on nature. Traditionalists espouse a hierarchy
among the sexes that they believe stems from nature, while Aristocratic
elitists espoused one based on history. Libertarians espouse a hierarchy
according to nature, in this case nature being the Free Market. Soviet
Communists espoused a hierarchy based on social worth, one according to history
and a mix of nature, as expressed in the way things are produced and the role
of a person in that production.

None of these groups need espouse the belief to
the same hierarchy. They can freely fight each other over what type of
hierarchy becomes institutionalized. But they all nevertheless consider
hierarchy unavoidable, it institutionalization unavoidable, and in many cases a
net good.

On the other hand are the groups Robin calls the “Left”
which believe that hierarchies are not inevitable and that social organization
should eradicate or minimize them and their institutionalization. The self-avowed goal of many egalitarian
movements is a world without hierarchy. Some of them focus on both hierarchies
of nature and history (what is termed “Radical Feminism”). Others focus only on
hierarchies of history (most social-democratic parties). Indeed it’s a common
mistake to believe that most Marxists believe that a class-less society will be
one without hierarchy. This might be the slogan of the street, but some more
careful reading of some Marxist texts indicates an understanding that nature
will always produce differences among human beings, differences that may lead
to hierarchies developing in certain issues.

The goal is to make sure that such
hierarchies are transient and never become institutionalized. The Marxist ideal
is that need not be institutionalized at the social level. In another name the
fact that I am more aesthetically pleasing to more people than you, or quicker
in my thought than you, or a better scholar than you, should not mean that I
should get more food than you, or get to decide what you do.

Just as support for some type of institutionalized hierarchy
connects Himmler and Hayek and De Maistre, so an opposition to
institutionalized hierarchy connects your hippy to Pol Pot. Pol Pot is to the
“Left” what Fascism is to “Conservatism”. A connection that rankles. But if we
accept Robin’s fundamental political divide on hierarchy, then Pol Pot cannot
but be an egalitarian. A sociopath sure, but an egalitarian one. The Cambodian
genocide seems to me as an effort to get rid Cambodia of one of the two causes
of hierarchy, hierarchy by history by wiping out social capital and those who
had accumulated it. This I feel is undeniable. Now whether such methods are
efficient for this goal or even necessary is an ongoing debate in the “Left”.

This seems a clear political divide. However, once we leave
the world of ideas and enter the world of history and social life we see that
the vast majority of humanity, both elite and non-elite have always had mixed
views on the question of hierarchy. There have always been people who have
supported hierarchy or opposed it as an absolute good or evil, but most human
beings probably had a more nuanced view. My own opinion informed by anecdotal
evidence and reading, is that most humans do accept that some hierarchy and
some institutionalization of it in society are unavoidable and practical. This
is why fairly egalitarian social groupings, if large, had developed some norms
of hierarchy. What people do not accept is arbitrariness, which infringes of the
conservative bias of the risk-aversion of the majority as it inhibits
stability.

Furthermore those at the bottom of the hierarchy and those
at the top are always engaged and have always engaged in a struggle over the
contours institutions of hierarchy. This predates the class struggles of
capitalism, and is as old as the agricultural revolution. In many ways all of
history since that Revolution is a contest between managers and producers about
the relative power of each in their relationship. And while this contest has been physically
violent many times, most of the time it has not. Instead if you look at the
daily routine of the contest, I believe one will see a seesaw story of
compromise.

Even avowedly radical movements, like the Levelers in 17th
century, the peasant rebels of the pre-modern era, the Paris Commune of 1870,
or the 1905 and 1917 Soviets, did not seek the abolishment of hierarchy as much
as the re-negotiation of the relationship between producers and managers. In
another name most practical as opposed to ideal politics, i.e. the politics of
the majority of the human race have never lived up to the ideals of
“Conservatives” or “Left”. This brings us to the second fundamental political
divide.

That is the one between Idealism and Pragmatism.

Many “Conservatives” pride themselves on being pragmatists
and opposed to Ideas. This primarily stems from their acceptance of the
inevitability of hierarchy which they see as accepting reality. The “Left”
prides itself on Ideas. But Robin makes the case that both of these are
movements of ideas. As I said though I believe most human beings pursue
practical politics. Change is incremental and more often the result of
compromise between elites and non-elites because the larger groups engaged in
it have a conservative temperament and like stability. Idealists are the
minority.

The idealists are the ones who believe that not only
hierarchy due to nature or due to history or both is inevitable but it is a net
good that should be persuaded. Idealists are the ones who believe that
hierarchy can be eradicated from human social life and always evil. Idealists
are absolutists, enemies of politics which they see as dirty, impure.

They are
the ones who always fall into deep depression when the side they supported wins
a struggle, and then compromise as part of the pragmatic political processes.
They always feel betrayed after every great revolution or counter-revolution.
They always feel that reality and society are not doing enough to pursue an
ideal form. They are the poets, and the mad prophets. They mobilize elites or
non-elites for great struggles, but the elites and non-elites are always
unwilling to go all the way. It is this focus on the ideal character of
hierarchy or the lack of hierarchy that connects people like the Romanian
Fascist Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, and a
Left wing idealist like Trotsky. It is what connects Brecht to
Chateaubriand. And it is what connects
practitioners of violence in the name of those ideals like Che Guevara and Henri
de la Rochejaquelein.

Most people are always willing to compromise their ideals in
the name of pragmatism and a social life. The masses who demand change are
willing to accept a compromise with the elites that provides for many of their
goals but not the ideal. Elites are willing to compromise with masses and
sacrifice hierarchical ideals to avoid revolution. Indeed un-compromising
revolutions and counter-revolutions are rare.

From the point of view of the
increase of hierarchy the only one to never make any compromises that I am
aware off was the Enclosure movement in England. But this may be because the
existence of the American colonies provided a way to deal with the disposed
that required no internal compromise. The suppression of the peasant revolution
in 17th century Switzerland is an example of what usually happens,
in which case the victorious elites after a bloody repression largely passed
laws that met many of the demands of the rebels. On the side of decreasing
hierarchy, the February and October Russian revolutions both had to make
practical compromises with elements of the old elite. Compromise is the
standard of most politics most of the time. Radicalism is rare. And this leads
to the final fundamental divide in politics.

The one between Pacifism, Radicalism and Instrumentalism
towards physical political violence.

Radicalism is a willingness to use any means to pursue a
goal, chief among them physical political violence. It is in the end the
willingness to kill in the name of ones goals. Why do I single out the willingness
to kill and physical violence as a fundamental political divide, considering
the focus of many on other forces of social violence (psychological)? Why do I
not talk about the willingness to die for ones goals? First, we know from
psychology that most people are willing to die but not to kill. Killing is a
much harder deviation from normality than dying. It is a much more radical act
if you will. Second, despite comprehending why so many authors and scholars and
voices of the dispossessed talk about non-physical forms of violence and how
they are used to perpetuate oppression, I think physical political violence has
an important characteristic that makes it unique. It has a logic of its own.

This is something that Nicolo Machiavelli and more clearly
Carl von Clausewitz have argued about. Physical violence, killing exerts its
own inexorable influence on those who use it, and influence that can easily
dominate any instrumental motives for its use. When you begin killing people
for a goal, you may find yourself losing your goal in due time. This
independent logic of violence, which Machiavelli and Clausewitz cautioned against,
means that physical political violence is a very dangerous means to any end.

Your violent revolution might lead to a regime that has nothing of the ideals
you espoused, as many people of the “Left” found out with the Soviet Union.
Robin points out the deep dissatisfaction of many “Conservatives” with the
victory of the US in the Cold War. The victory did not bring the world they
thought it could. Many an idealist has hoped that blood will clarify the great
divides only to find that war just forces all to be sacrificed to the needs of
military strategy.

Physical Political Violence is important and unique because
it is an agent of its own, independent of the bearer and of the goal. And the
position of an individual towards its use for political means is important. At
one side of the divide we have the absolute pacifist. That person is willing to
die for an idea but not to kill for it. But absolute pacifists are rare. On the
other side we have the Radical. The
Radical is willing to kill for their ideal. Not only that, but the Radical may
come to see killing as something pure and grand in itself. Of course they will
not call it killing instead using words like “struggle”, “contest” etc. But
make no mistake it is killing we are talking about.

The killing of the enemy in the name of the ideal is a
liberating thing, as Franz Fanon declared. Robin shows Burke, De Maistre and
Theodore Roosevelt extol the virtues of the warrior and conflict. In the mind
of both Fascists and Militant Anarchist an apocalyptical class or ideological
war is a good thing, a chance to destroy the old corrupt world and build something
new. It is this willingness to kill and exultation of killing that connects people
like the Red Brigades with ideologically opposed groups like Iron Guard. My
Left wing friends get angry when one proposes the Theory of the Two Extremes,
and there is some justice in this anger. But on this one axis of politics, it
is correct. From the point of view of unleashing the independent logic of
violence in the political stage both the killer of the “Left” and the killer of
“Conservatism” are one and the same. Killing is good and proper.

Most people do not have that view of killing. Instead I
would argue that most of the elites and non-elites in the world have an “instrumentalist”
view of killing for political goals. They abhor violence, especially outside
the regimes of society. However, they are willing to use it as part of a
political strategy to attain a goal in extremis. This majoritarian view is what
Machiavelli and Clausewitz captured in their work.

If one looks carefully at
many rebellions of the non-elites they will see this element of moderation,
especially in the pre-industrial era. Rebels were almost always “His Majesty’s
Rebels” and the use of violence, like the use of the strike by workers, had an instrumental
goal. Radicals of course accompanied these movements and political demands, but
in due time they either became disillusioned or were expelled when they were
not useful anymore. In the few cases they overtook the will of the rebelling masses,
as the Bolsheviks did with the Soviets in 1917; the political program quickly
became victim of the logic of violence.

From the side of elites, the clearest example of an “instrumentalist”
would be Cardinal Richelieu. Both domestic and external violence for him had
specific goals and once those goals were attained violence must be stopped. His
defeat of the Huguenots was followed by meeting some of their religious
demands, not by their destruction. That said, it must be clear to all that instrumentalism
is a rife position, because even the instrumental use of violence will unleash
the Radicals. The logic of violence will create Radicals where those did not
exist, and will empower those that do exist. This is what King Louis XIV forgot
when he joined the Jacobins in declaring war on Austria. He thought it would
let him tame the Radicals. Instead it put them in the position of power and
cost him his head.

It is very hard for Radicalism to be chained once unleashed.
Lenin did it thanks to the length and size of the Russian Civil War. Castro
never really did it, but his Radical left of his own free will when disillusioned.
The German traditionalist “Conservatives” failed to do so when they succored
Hitler.

So instrumentalism is
a risky proposition of violence. Which is something I think the masses of
elites and non-elites do understand.

And we are talking about masses. Even if
you accept the 1% arithmetic of who is the elites (more correct would be a
10-20%) we are still talking about 70.000.000 people out of 7.000.000.000
people. Most of those are not exponents
of killing and so are not most of the 6.930.000.000 non-elites. Physical
Political Violence is a rarity, and this frustrates some Radicals of different ideals.

I conclude in the third part going back to the personal which is the wellspring of these thoughts.

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